Panasonic, Hitachi and Toshiba all go in on LCD venture

This is
going to be the year of flat panel TVs. Everyone, from Samsung to Sharp to
Hitachi, have stepped up and raised their output capacity of their plasmas and LCDs.

Last year, LG.Philips dominated the LCD landscape
with their joint venture but there are some new kids in town that may change that and they are not small name
companies. IPS Alpha
Technology Ltd. is a joint venture between Panasonic, Hitachi and Toshiba that was started last year in order to
jointly produce LCD panels. The original plans was just bumped up in light of the LCD demand.

The initial
plan called for production to start between July and September 2006 but this has been moved up to May and will be at
full capacity by April of next year instead of March of 2009.

Can you see the writing on the wall?
Tube TVs are going to be non-existent in a matter of years with this scale of LCD production.